Here We Go!

I really didn't even know what a blog was until January 2010.  Our local paper did a story on a book signing for the Pioneer Woman (who I also had never heard of...even though she lives about an hour away...yes, I live under a rock) which led me to her blog, which totally changed how I spend my free time!  I dove head first into reading mainly home design blogs and found it fascinating to have so much talent and inspiration at my fingertips.

Since beginning with my college dorm room, I have always enjoyed decorating although I cringe now when I look back at some spaces that I thought looked really good at the time.  My taste is pretty fickle and changes like the wind.  I believe we owned 3 or 4 sofas within our first 2 years of marriage.   I sold my formal dining room set last weekend that I thought we would have forever.  I think I'm finally starting to figure out what works for us.  My goal is to have a welcoming, comfortable, gracious house that friends and family love to visit.   

For the last year or so I've had several friends keep telling me "You should start a blog!" which sounded fun, but I haven't wanted to put in the work to do it until now.  I've found myself wanting an outlet to share my creativity and talents that the Lord has given me.  About a year and a half ago I had a dear friend that I don't see very often ask me "What are you excited about?"  I gave some lame answer like "the upcoming holidays" or something like that, but I've never forgotten that question.  I wanted something to be excited about that's just for me, just my "thing."  Maybe this blog will be it.  I'll probably just be sharing with a very small circle, but I'm looking at this as an opportunity to record happenings within our family and events important in our lives.  I started scrapbooking years ago, am years behind, so I'm hoping that this blog will be our new family scrapbook of sorts with lots of house stuff thrown in.  

I struggled quite a bit in coming up with a name for a blog, that's a big part of why it took me so long to start one.  (Hopefully you're not thinking I should have kept trying!)  I wanted something catchy, reflective of our family and my interests.  One morning as I was brushing Emily's hair (which is ALWAYS tangled) the thought "tangles" popped into my head to describe her, and it didn't take long to come up with "dimples" for Caleb.  My thought was not only does it apply to my children, but kind-of also applies to life for me.  In my husband's line of work, I know that often people may think that our life is all sparkly, but things don't always go as smoothly as planned.  The Lord has blessed us beyond what I could ever imagine, but we live in the real world with so many hurting people.  So, with my children, life, projects, plans, I want to be transparent and share the good and the bad where sometimes life is all dimples and sometimes it's full of tangles!

OK, on to my blog name.  Meet Dimples and Tangles...

 
 

I'll let you guess which is which.  I love this picture because it so perfectly defines their relationship.  She's being a stinker pulling his hair with a twinkle in her eye while she does it.  They love hanging out together (for the most part! but I am so glad they're back at school!) and my prayer is that they truly will be best friends as they grow. 

We've lived in our current house for 4 years and in the near future I'd like to share some of the most recent projects I've completed, and then we'll pick up from there and just keep going.  A friend visited the other day and said "You're going to have to move, you've just about done everything to this house!"  I replied that No, now we're going back and re-doing.  I told you, I change my mind a lot.  

Here's a little bit about our family:

Photo by the talented Caitlin Boswell  http://caitboswell.com/

Ray and I married in 1994 after meeting and falling in love at Oklahoma Baptist University.  Go Bison!  He is the Executive Pastor at our church, which has a million different definitions but for us basically means that he shepherds all of the other staff members, facilitates staff development, makes sure that all of the different parts of the body and working smoothly together and does a fair amount of counseling.  In the past he has spent time as a Youth Minister, Singles Minister, Minister to Families, and Education Minister.  He enjoys the mountains, hiking, car stuff and playing with the kids.

Photo also by Caitlin Boswell

Aside from what I've already mentioned, here are a few things I enjoy: watching tv (come on new season!), Casting Crowns and Brad Paisley's music, thrift shopping for unique treasures, Chocolate Almond shakes from Braum's and The Mitford Series books by Jan Karon make me laugh out loud.  Being in ministry I can relate to so many of the characters. 

Caleb is our first born.  He is enjoying a brand new school year as a Safety Patrol member and is playing baseball for the first time this fall.  He LOVES OU football, all things LEGO and Star Wars.  He is a smart, funny kid with an amazing memory for facts (once again, mainly about Legos and Star Wars.)

Emily is our sweet, spunky girl.  She readily declares that she HATES pink and would live outside if we'd let her (oops, except for playing the Wii).  She is a live wire full of pep and personality and loves to play soccer, board games, and tag at recess. 

This post was very "wordy."  I have never enjoyed writing much so you can anticipate lots more pictures in the future, but I wanted to give a good background of our family and why I'm jumping into the blogosphere.  I'll also continue working on my blog layout.  I have lots of extras to add!

Blessings to you!